Marvel Comics

Back in the day, when the world of blockbuster franchises was new, picking your favorite was easy: Empire, Return of the Jedi, or the first one. Today, it’s a little tougher. The interconnected stories of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe form the second highest-grossing film series of all time (and watch out, Harry Potter, they’re catching up!). With a separate solo series for each A-list Avenger and two focusing on broader line-ups from the S.H.I.E.L.D. gang, this franchise is expanding in every direction. In honor of this year’s Comic-Con, we’ll do our best to rank each entry from most to least heroic.

It wasn’t just the (literally) life and death drama surrounding the Spider-Man Broadway musical that people were gossiping about this year, but its upcoming celluloid cousin – a reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise that re-imagines the possibilities of a Marvel universe with a non-white Peter Parker – was also a source of chatter around the Internet water cooler amongst Marvel, sci-fi, and oddly enough Donald Glover fans.

The folks over at io9.com have an amazing visual slideshow of the Marvel Swimsuit issues, which were published in the early 90s. They’re like Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue. But with comic book heroes.

They’re also the gayest things I’ve ever seen. From io9.com:
The Marvel Swimsuit Specials were a unique breed of Nineties comic double-you-tee-effery. They took sober, serious superheroes and made them flaunt their décolletage and banana hammocks (more so than usual). Here’s the ripest cheesecake we could find.